A secret love
by Song of Stillness
Summary: "Look at me." A dying Severus reflects...


A secret love

Somehow he knew it had to end like this, the ultimate price for killing the one he loved. He'd payed it in full now… and a part of him was glad, glad that he was in pain for all the pain he'd caused her, that he was suffering just like she had, that he was dying for the boy… the child that she too had died saving, the boy with the same brilliant green eyes, eyes that would haunt him from this world to the next…

Lily Evans.

Even in the beginning, saying her name out loud had been a sort of mantra, a mantra he used when he was lonely or upset, while his parents screamed angry abuse at each other, while he was beaten and shoved against the wall. All he'd have to think about were her eyes and the way her face lit up when she smiled, and the pain would seem easier to bear.

Whether walking through the grounds at Hogwarts in summer, or dodging the rain and snow in Winter, time spent with Lilly Evans were the best days of his life…

And so it was with an unreal horror that he had sat there and looked into Dumbledore's piercingly blue eyes, trying to decipher the truth he could not accept.

_I thought… you were going… to keep her…safe…_

Dumbledore had sat there maddeningly calm.

_I wish… I wish _I_ were dead!_

He'd reached across to grab at some sort of comfort and the old man had seized his hands rather forcefully.

"Severus. Severus, listen to me!

If you loved Lily Evans, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear…"

And he hadn't known what Dumbledore had meant at first, but then it became clear. Through her son, Lilly's son. He didn't think he could do it at first. He remembered the first time he had seen the boy, an exact replica of his arrogant, stupid father and a hatred that he thought had been long buried had coursed through his veins. But he had to still himself to remember…

_He has her eyes, precisely her eyes…_

And indeed he had, for when Harry had looked up from a spell book in his Potions Class, his brow creased with bewilderment as to why this man hated him so much, Severus saw Lily's eyes staring into his own. It had been a shock at first but after that Severus had avoided eye contact with Harry whenever possible. He couldn't bear to see those beloved eyes in the face of the one he had hated so much.

He remembered a time when they had been younger and he had crafted a bouquet of lilies for her on her birthday. It had been a particularly difficult piece of magic for him then but it had been worth it, for in that wild moment she had thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him. He distinctly remembered the sudden trembling weakness in his knees and his breath almost constricting in his throat. She had flounced away after that, a little embarrassed but not ashamed, never ashamed. She took his hand shyly and they ran together back to the castle, the sunlight glinting off red-gold and black hair.

_Look at me…_

And he remembers the time they had drifted apart, the cursed words he had let slip from his mouth, the self-hatred and the deep loneliness that had eaten him from the inside out at her rejection. If only he had a chance, one chance to replay that fateful day, Lily Evans might have been his. If only…

And now staring at the teenaged boy kneeling beside him, he was swept with an unfamiliar emotion. Regret? Could it be possible? After all these years. If he had been kinder to the boy, nicer to the boy… he would still have a connection with his beloved Lilly…

_Take it…_

Harry still had much to learn, much to do… and time was running out… He felt the cold, wispy substance as it flowed out of his body, leaving him more like an empty shell than before. His mind flew back to one of his most happiest memories.

They were sitting in a glade, near their favourite childhood park. They were holding hands.

"Sev?" she had questioned. And he had turned to look at her, drinking in her radiant beauty, the sunshine glistening in her red hair.

"What do you think happens when we die?"

The question had startled him for a second and he had furrowed his brow in concentration.

"I don't know Lilly…probably nothing. We just stop…existing…" A shadow had crossed his face and he started pulling up the grass in handfuls by the roots.

Lilly pierced him with a searching stare.

"You really think so Sev…?"

He looked down, determined not to break under her stare.

"I think we move on… into the next world… I think dying is just like stepping through a door leading to somewhere new, somewhere different…"

"And what… what do you think happens after that…?" he had whispered.

Her eyes had shone intently, leaf-green flecked with gold.

"We're finally free to live out the dreams we couldn't live on Earth…"

"Really…?"

"Yes."

She had said it so simply, and believed in it so strongly that for a minute he was suspended with her in mid-air, caught up in the sunlight and the possibility of living a life he had always wanted… a life involving her, only her…

_Look at me…_

The cold floorboards beneath him and the pain coursing through his veins were somewhat numbed as he focused on the face in front of him. Harry. Lilly's child. And in that glance he saw his future, his Lilly and a hope that shone out and banished the darkness. He was home.


End file.
